On the Prowl
ON THE PROWL Casting His Lott Presidential front-runner Gov. George W Bush has already held some casual discussions with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott about the 2000 campaign and plans for...
...Gore 200o insiders say they're pinning their hopes on Hillary's not running for the New York Senate seat...
...Name Lanny Davis ambassador to the South Pole...
...she doesn't...
...Like what...
...Jim Rogan not only would not challenge Dianne Feinstein for her Senate seat next year but would not seek re-election to the House has proved inaccurate and premature...
...But since the president rarely sees his wife, who for all intents, some say, has moved out of the presidential residence, he gave the off-pink and purple-edged flowers to presidential secretary Betty Currie...
...But he will defend his House seat, and is expected to spend more than $1 million doing so...
...Rosty's White House meeting with Mrs...
...Clinton, on one of the few days she was actually in town in May, was brief...
...Lott has been receptive, in part because Bush has agreed to hold several high-profile fundraisers for Lott and the Senate Republicans over the coming months...
...She gave it to an assistant and had it dumped...
...A concerned Dick Gephardt is said to have called Ted Kennedy about how best to handle the situation...
...A Rosty Reception Using former Democratic Ways and Means strongman and ex-con Dan Rostenkowski as their messenger, Illinois Democrats have made a last-ditch effort to recruit Hillary Rodham Clinton to run in her home state in 2004 for the Senate seat currently held by Peter Fitzgerald...
...In return, Hastert promised Gephardt that Republicans would refrain from offering amendments of their own...
...Wrong About Rogan Widespread Capitol Hill talk during last month's On the Prowl cycle that California Rep...
...This is Rubin's swan song, but it could also be Gramm's as to how much influence he still wields on public policy," said the Banking Committee source...
...But Rubin is said to have swayed Republican Banking Committee members Richard Shelby and Robert Bennett to his way of thinking, and banking lobbyists have told party fundraisers that they won't be giving actively until after the vote...
...The compromise fell through when Lowey and DeLauro charged into Gephardt's office (despite a staffer's attempt to stop them), and informed him that as far as they were concerned there was no deal...
...At one point he and Tipper were spending at least a weekend a month in Chicago with the Daleys," says an aide in Gore's advance office...
...For several weeks in May, his boss Madeleine Albright, pressed the White House to go ahead with a U.S.-based meeting to discuss integration of the Baltic states into NATO...
...Hastert had requested the deal after hearing that Lowey and DeLauro were planning to bog down the budget process with the more than loo gun-control amendments that they'd gathered...
...One Lott aide who was privy to their conversations says, "The way the two of them talked, it was a foregone conclusion Bush was the nominee...
...Talbott is likely to retain Clinton's ear indefinitely...
...She met with Rostenkowski as a courtesy, and told him she has no intention of waiting four years to run," says a staffer familiar with the conversation...
...The American Spectator • July 1999 13...
...Gun-Crazed Democrats in the House caught a glimpse of who wears the pants in their party when Reps...
...Kennedy has ensured that we won't win back the House," says a senior Democratic Hill strategist...
...We can't block it, and [committee Chairman Jesse] Helms says he likes her personally, so she's going to be approved," said an aide in Helms's office...
...Dick and Dennis had agreed that no gun-control amendments would be attached to the three appropriations budgets the House was considering before the Memorial Day recess...
...Albright has just given up any hope that her opinion carries any weight with the president," the source says...
...The big test should come soon, when the House and Senate consider who should regulate the banking industry under the pending Financial Services Modernization Act...
...Rosa DeLauro and Nita Lowey forced Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to back out of a compromise gun-control deal he'd struck with Speaker Dennis Hastert...
...Gephardt had to call Hastert to tell him the deal was off, that he couldn't control the women on his side of the aisle," says a Gephardt aide...
...She felt it would be good for continuity," says a State Department source...
...But Talbott got his way by personally appealing to his close friend President Clinton...
...Patrick Kennedy has been on the job only six months, House colleagues want him ousted as head of the House Democratic Campaign Committee...
...We o weren't willing to give it up, and Rogan is too valuable to conservatives to lose," said an RNC fundraiser, who disputed last month's Prowler item predicting Rogan's demise as inaccurate and dead wrong...
...Negotiations with the Russians were at a delicate stage, he explained, and canceling the meeting would help his cause...
...Gramm's going to lose on this one, because the banks want the Treasury Department, and the banking industry has been throwing a lot of money around for this vote," says a Banking Committee worker...
...One thing seems sure: Next time the two meet, Helms's pal Madeleine Albright may be in no mood to hold hands...
...Gramm wants it to be the Federal Reserve, while many Democrats and a few of Gramm's Republican colleagues seem to be leaning toward the Treasury Department, where popular outgoing Secretary Robert Rubin has been pushing hard to win control for his office...
...Not that he was ever alone with her, right...
...He reminds voters of all the scandals he sucked Al into...
...Democratic fundraising whiz Terry McAuliffe had turned him down cold, as did Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his brother, William Daley, Clinton's invisible commerce secretary...
...The word around Foggy Bottom is that Talbott's next big move will see him return to book-writing...
...She gave no reason, but it's believed she's creating her own campaign apparatus...
...Saying Gore had the vision to back him on tough issues, Clinton asked for contributions to help further his achievements by electing Gore...
...Does Phil Gramm have any juice left...
...Jesse Breaks Maddy's Heart Republicans on the Hill are so disorganized that they can't even kill a ludicrous ambassadorial nomination properly...
...Every candidate he brings around to meet us is just like him...
...GOP members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concede they can't muster enough votes to stall the nomination of former colleague Carol Moseley-Braun as ambassador to New Zealand...
...John Hancock Hillary On May 25 more than a million letters under the signature of Bill Clinton went out to prospective donors to the Gore 2000 campaign...
...In fact, he's said to be interested in writing the authorized biography of Bill Clinton...
...Where's Patricia Schroeder when you need her...
...While some staffers on the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee still may not be eager to spend that kind of money to keep a conservative 9 in office, the Republican National Committee is breathing a sigh of relief...
...His unique fundraising techniques notwithstanding— e.g., offering his family's Hyannis Port retreat as a weekend vacation spot to big donors who want to meet big daddy Teddy—young Patrick has failed to attract candidates who might seriously challenge Republicans next year...
...Hillary didn't even bother to look at the Illinois party's polling material, which had her beating Fitzgerald handily by 57-38 percent...
...As reported here last month, Rogan won't be running for the Senate, as many admirers of the House impeachment manager had hoped...
...Secondhand Roses When President Clinton recently returned to the White House from a fundraising trip to the West Coast, he brought with him roses from Barbra Streisand, which she had picked in his presence during a stroll in her Malibu garden and asked that he pass on to dear Hillary...
...More Gore Some in Washington were caught off guard when Al Gore selected unsavory former House Democratic whip Tony Coelho as his campaign manager...
...We think the 12 July 1999 • The American Spectator White House may do us a favor in return...
...Some inside the DNC still think McAuliffe will end up there for the z000 campaign, but the turndowns by the Daleys are more shocking given all the time Gore had spent cultivating both brothers...
...In fact, it wanted the letter to include Hillary Clinton's signature as well...
...It wasn't exactly what the Gore camp wanted...
...He's bringing in some money, but he's attracting lightweight candidates, and the DNC isn't helping matters by just letting him do his own thing...
...Hillary, however, balked, even after Tipper Gore asked her to do it as a personal favor...
...But it wasn't as if Gore had many options...
...In and Out of His Element Although Rep...
...She's going to help us more in the long run than Bill will...
...Whose Swan Song...
...The vice president was disappointed he couldn't finalize the deal...
...Clinton Remembers Despite chronic failures in his dealings with Russia, Assistant Secretary of State Strobe Talbott continues to carry influence inside the White House...
...She said it was going to be New York or nothing...
...We really hope she'll be around to work for us," says one Gore campaigner...
...George W Bush has already held some casual discussions with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott about the 2000 campaign and plans for the GOP's Philadelphia convention...
...Everyone's money is on Rubin...
...Gramm's desire to have the more stringent Fed oversee the banking industry is a characteristic display of defiance on his part, especially since he's been shaking campaign donations out of bankers for years...
Vol. 32 • July 1999 • No. 7
